


The Woods We Carry With Us

by Griftings



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, And Then Back to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, and then back to friends again, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:09:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6174154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griftings/pseuds/Griftings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I go where my feet take me," she offers with a shrug, somewhere between a reason and an excuse. "And apparently my feet wanted me to be cold." They both glance down to her toes, bright red against the snow since she still hasn't replaced her shoes. She's worn thick calluses into them, her heels now as rough as any boot, but the cold in her feet is an afterthought to Percy's smile and the glint in his eyes.</i>
</p><p><i>"Well, dear" he says, and offers her his elbow, "let us go warm them then, yes?" By the gods, she didn't realize it, but she's </i>missed<i> him.</i></p><p>  <i>"Do lets," she agrees, and takes his arm in hers.</i></p><p>Or, the one where Vex wanders, Percy waits, the both of them want, and the both of them make mistakes. The romance of two broken people, told over the span of a lifetime, and in four seasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. SPRING

**Author's Note:**

> this is either a vex character study disguised as a perc'ahlia romance, or a perc'ahlia romance disguised as a vex character study. tbh either works for me shrug.

When Vox Machina disbands, Vex goes to the woods.

Loneliness is a new thing for her; even when her brother was learning the ways of the rogue in the city and she was learning to shoot and trap in the forest, she knew that he would be waiting for her at the gates at the end of a long day.

But back then he was her only family, and now that it has grown exponentially, she feels the loss of it keenly.

Keyleth goes back to her people, of course, and Percy obviously returns to Whitestone. She kisses both of them before they leave, to mixed reactions. Tiberius has been helping Draconia rebuild, and Grog stays in Vasselheim with Pike, finding an odd sort of belonging with the followers of Kord that none of them were expecting. Scanlan hits the road to go play his music, and Vax...

Well.

Vax stays with her for a while, but she isn't surprised when he leaves as well. After all, Vex's heart has always been in the forest, beneath the dark limbs of the trees, and Vax's heart is with a Druid far away from her.

It hurts, but maybe not as much as she'd thought it would. She doesn't need him to survive anymore, but he has not needed her for much longer.

So she goes to the woods, because that is what she knows.

Her connection with nature is not like Keyleth's; it is not innate, it is not fluid. It is learned and hard-won, but no less important for all of her struggling to achieve it. Keyleth can speak to trees, but trees are Vex's _home_ , and returning to the woods is like taking a deep breath again after a long, long sleep.

She falls back into the habits of a ranger with surprising ease. She hunts when she's hungry and sleeps when she's tired, unfettered by the ties of civilization that dictate when such moments are appropriate, and of course her Trinket is with her, the crown jewel of all the lovely things she's stolen over the years.

She goes where she pleases, when she pleases, with no boundaries to reign her in. She's not tethered to a city so that her brother can pick locks. She's not chained to a Council to keep an eye on politics. She wakes, and she walks, and she chooses her direction and the path that she takes to get there. It is lonely, but it is _freeing_ , and in the woods she loses track of time until one day she stops in a town to fetch supplies and finds that months have passed beneath the trees since the last time she'd spoken to her brother.

To that end she writes a score of letters, one to each of her friends, with messages in varying degrees of length and politeness, all of which essentially equate to, _Hope you're well, I'm not dead yet, cheers. Love, Vex._

She sends them on messenger birds and stays in the town for two weeks awaiting replies before her feet start to itch in her boots and she continues on her way.

\--------

She travels to Byroden, to the town she grew up, and stands among the ashes and burnt skeletons of houses, the land still scarred and pocked by dragon fire even so many years later. She breathes in deep and closes her eyes and thinks that if she listens very, very closely she can still hear the hum of her mother's voice lifting like birdsong on the wind.

She travels to the woods where once she was captured, where she found Trinket, trusting her memory to guide her steps, and finds the bones of a bear in an abandoned glade, stones still stacked into a fire pit nearby. She pays her respects the only way a ranger can; she's no Druid, but she knows predators, and she leaves a brace of rabbits by the bleach-white skull in thanks. She can only hope that it's a fair tribute.

She travels to Kraghammer, to Westruun, to Wildmount, to Stillben. She sends messages and occasionally receives them, if she stays in one place long enough. When the soles of her shoes wear thin she takes them off and goes barefoot. She makes peace with her father the only way she knows how, which is to give Syngorn as wide a berth as she possibly can. She goes, and she goes, and she goes.

And maybe she doesn't know quite where she's _going_ , but Vex'ahlia is sure that she'll get there eventually.

\--------

The ravens of Whitestone are ridiculously intelligent animals. No matter how far Vex has traveled the feathered beasts always find her, blinking their beady eyes and clicking their sharp beaks, hemming and hawing at her to take their burdens but dancing away from her hands coyly when she reaches for them.

"Just like your master," she sighs every time, and every time they eventually calm and perch on her shoulder, coaxed into complacency while Trinket licks his lips and watches.

Percy's messages are also like the man himself, full of pomp and circumstance, and yet somehow also concise in the way that only a few members of Vox Machina were ever truly able to understand. "Like Thief's Cant," Vax had said about him once, "wrapping up a few clear ideas in layers and layers of shit."

They typically boil down to this: Percy is also not dead, and is pleased by their mutual continued existence; Whitestone's economy is steadily stabilizing and repairs to the city are nearing completion; and that she's only ever seen it in winter, hasn't she, and the trees and mountains are lovely in the spring, in the summer, in the fall, and she should come and see them.

And she writes back perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

All of the former members of Vox Machina are out of her reach in some manner or another. Whether by the distance between them on the map or the distance between them in their hearts, Vex feels disconnected from them all in a way that used to bother her but that she has become accustomed to. Percy is, perhaps, the one member besides her brother that she feels she could return to without expectation, without reason, without feeling like she's given up the freedom she'd never realized she didn't have.

This is probably why she doesn't return to him.

She can't deny that there was something between them, at some point, because there was. She can't deny it, but she doesn't have to acknowledge it. It's something she's very good at, avoiding her problems, and Whitestone is simple enough to stay away from. South is a very general direction, after all, and she doesn't let herself feel guilty for it because she _does_ write letters and they _do_ stay in touch.

She visits her brother and Keyleth with the Air Ashari, stays with them for a while. It's strange, to be back with friends after so much time has passed. A full year come and gone without her even realizing it, a full year of moving and traveling and _going_ , and it's been freeing to have no destination but it's finally starting to feel a bit aimless without an end goal.

Keyleth finds her one day, perched in a tree, facing the rising sun.

"Mind if I join you?" she calls out, and Vex looks down, gives her a nod.

After some clamoring and swearing they're both balanced on a limb, hanging above the Ashari far below them. The trees here are massive and wide, branches as thick around as Trinket is, old and ancient and fed by the residual magical energy that Druids put off. When Vex breathes in she swears she can taste the magic in the area, the memories of generations, inhaled by the trees and exhaled like oxygen to make her blood pump wild and her heart sing.

Keyleth watches her take a deep, satisfying breath with a smile. "It's good here, right?" she asks, swinging her legs through the air below. "It was weird, coming back after being gone for so long. After everything that we lost." Her eyes go far away, casting over the forest and mountains spread out before them, far to the north, to the ocean and beyond. She loses focus, the way she occasionally does when scrying, and Vex wonders where she looks. "It was weird," she repeats, coming back to herself after a few seconds pass, "but good. This has always been my home."

Vex looks down at the forest floor below them, at the Ashari going about their daily business. How small they must be, she thinks, to be tied down to only one place to call their own. And that is such a strange concept to her, the idea of home. Home has been her mother's arms, holding her tight after a nightmare. Home has been her brother's smile, resilient even in adversity. Home has been bear fur, has been the stone walls of the Keep, has been the green glow of sunlight filtered through the leaves of the forest.

Vex has never had a home. Vex is always home.

"I love it here," Keyleth continues, oblivious to her thoughts. "The trees, the mountains. The little rivers that run through them. I could go anywhere I wanted in the whole wide world, and if I came back they'd still be here, waiting for me." She smiles, closes her eyes and tilts her face against the wind. "It's a little humbling, don't you think?"

Vex looks at the mountains and forest beyond, able to see for miles as high up as she is. The trees in the north are made of hardier wood than these that the Ashari tend to, but she could cut them down. The mountains are steep and cold, but she could scale them. The plains and fields are vast and wide, but she could cross them. There is a whole wide world set in front of her, waiting to be seen, begging to be explored, if only one is sure of foot and quick of hand. She could do it.

Bears, she knows, are apex predators, but anything can be tamed.

No, Vex'ahlia thinks as she and Keyleth look out to the horizon, it doesn't make her feel humble at all.

\--------

When next she has occasion to go to Whitestone, it is ironically the turn of the season, and an early winter has coated the land in the north with snow. She's traveled close enough that not making at least an appearance would be rude, and besides she _does_ miss Percy. She misses his quips and their easy banter, and she misses his companionable silences, and she absolutely misses his exploding arrows.

She stops at a town a few days' travel south and sends word ahead of her, and by the time she's arrived to the city proper the snow has fallen with extreme prejudice, such that even Trinket looks miserable from the cold. They make their way to the castle with little fanfare, though she does get a few odd looks that she's long grown used to, having journeyed with a bear for nearly a decade now.

The Lord of the city greets her there with a wide smile, waving off his attendants and bustling towards her, coat sweeping out behind him. He opens his arms for a hug and unexpectedly Vex wants nothing more than to return it. So she does, and he laughs when she lifts him up off the ground from the force of it, his thin frame no match for archer's muscles.

"Percival de Rolo," she grins after she sets him down, "have you not been eating this entire time? You're skin and bones, darling!"

He opens his mouth to reply but is interupted when Trinket barrels forwards and licks him square on the face, slurping loudly and knocking his glasses askew.

"Trinket," she says in admonishment, but Percy just waves it off, hand disappearing into the thick fur of the bear's neck.

"It's alright, quite alright. I missed you too, Trinket," he says, smiling, and Trinket grunts excitedly. Then he turns back to Vex, one eyebrow raised, and says in a mock-offended voice, "And you, Lady Vex'ahlia. I believe that I requested your presence many months ago so that you could see the city during a different season, and yet here you are!" He gestures around with one hand, the other still scratching a rumbling Trinket under the chin. "In winter!

"I go where my feet take me," she offers with a shrug, somewhere between a reason and an excuse. "And apparently my feet wanted me to be cold." They both glance down to her toes, bright red against the snow since she still hasn't replaced her shoes. She's worn thick calluses into them, her heels now as rough as any boot, but the cold in her feet is an afterthought to Percy's smile and the glint in his eyes.

"Well, dear" he says, and offers her his elbow, "let us go warm them then, yes?" By the gods, she didn't realize it, but she's _missed_ him.

"Do lets," she agrees, and takes his arm in hers.

They must be a sight, the Lord de Rolo escorting a worn and dirty half-elf through the castle with a massive bear trundling along at their heels, but if Percy notices the startled stares the servants shoot them as they pass then he makes no mention of it, and so neither does she. Slipping back into conversation with him is easy, familiar, like donning a favorite cloak, the cadence and tilt of his cultured voice pulling her in like no time has passed, like she could glance over her shoulder and find her brother skulking through the shadows, or see Grog's wide shoulders taking up half the hallway. It's disorienting and peculiar, but it's also _lovely_ , like finding a coin purse you'd thought lost and discovering there was more gold inside then you'd remembered it having.

The corridors and passages are vaguely familiar to her, memories of their mad flight through the castle looking for the Briarwoods superimposed over the memories of the much calmer weeks that followed leading up to the Winter's Crest celebration, but Percy doesn't hesitate or waver at any twist or turn, just leads them on with easy assurance and chatting all the while, her arm still tucked against his side. She sees Cassandra, briefly, and raises a hand in greeting to the younger de Rolo, before Percy leads her on without stopping, sparing only a brief nod to his sister. He brings them to a study with a roaring fire in the hearth, shelves and shelves of books along the wall and enough room for Trinket to easily settle his weight in a corner and begin to groom himself.

Percy pulls a finely upholstered leather chair closer to the fire and ushers a laughing Vex into it, and she goes without resistance, half watching with amusement as he calls a servant in to fetch some brandy and biscuits and half surveying the room, mentally calculating the sale value of everything that she could easily pocket while his attention is elsewhere.

She wouldn't, of course. But even after months upon months of travel in the wilderness she finds that old habits are hard to break.

Once the servant, a wide-eyed girl maybe midway through her teenage years who could barely take her eyes off of Trinket to listen to her Lord, has rushed off to fetch his requests, Percy pulls another chair close to the hearth, across from hers so they're facing each other, and takes off his coat. He hangs it up over the back of the chair and then slumps down into it with a sigh. Vex promptly kicks up her chilly, dusty feet and digs them under his knees. His yelp of surprise is worth the light slap she receives on her shin for it, and her smile is instant, instinctual.

"So," she says, trying in vain to wipe the grin off her face and only slightly mollified by the fact that Percy seems to be having trouble doing the same. "Tell me of your city, oh Lord of Whitestone. What terribly important and boring politic-y things have I missed out on?"

His face lights up, and he does. He tells her about the Council and rebuilding everything that was destroyed in the rebellion. He tells her that the population is growing again, that more children have been born in the last year than in the last half-decade combined, that crops are beginning to grow again in fields they'd feared had been sown with salt. He tells her that shops are being built, that Gilmore has finally officially contacted him about expanding his franchise into the city, and that more than half of the refugees from Emon that fled to Whitestone during the dragon attack had decided to stay and are now official citizens.

"And everyone keeps asking my _opinion_ on things," he groans, gesturing with his glass of brandy, the servant girl having returned during a tirade on establishing trade routes with Westruun. "As if I know anything about crop cycles. You ask me to help build a cannon, now that I can do, but this... lordship business. Education is one thing, but this is something else entirely. I was never meant for that, I don't think. I sometimes fear that I'm floundering, and most of the time I just make it up as I go along."

Vex disagrees. He might complain, but his eyes are wide and happy, his face open and breathless with excitement as he talks about his city. She thinks that perhaps Percival has only ever seen in himself potential to destroy, and now suddenly he has been given an option to use that potential to build.

It suits him. Perhaps it wasn't what he was expecting, or what he wanted, but it very clearly suits him. A fine Lord, she thinks, and feels a sudden sense of melancholy that she can't explain. She wrestles it down deep inside so it doesn't show on her face; Percy is happy. She will be happy for him.

He finishes speaking with a sigh, swirling his brandy lazily and staring into the fire, a small smile still tugging at the corner of his mouth. She takes the moment to study him, to well and truly look him over in a way that she hasn't allowed herself to yet.

He looks good. She may joke that he's thin, but she thinks that that may be more an honest trait of his and less because he doesn't eat. His face has filled out a bit, some of the shadows beneath his eyes faded to look like normal bags and not bruises, and his clothing is both fine and practical, though more ornamental then she remembers him wearing, and he's still got the perpetual bedhead-look he's always sported, a result of nervously running his hands through his hair. He's replaced his glasses with another pair, these a bit larger and with silver frames instead of gold ones, a lovely compliment to his blue eyes.

Vex swallows and glances at the fire as well, determined to enjoy the pleasant, comfortable silence.

"What about you, Vex'ahlia?" he asks after a long pause. His voice has gone deep, lazy, and he sits nearly boneless in his chair, a posture that she knows she mirrors, her legs still stretched out between them and toes still tucked beneath his knees, the two of them lulled into security by good company and good alcohol. "What have you been up to these long, long months of absence?"

"Just wandering," she murmurs, picking at a biscuit with her fingernails. She doesn't regret her exploring, not ever, but compared to what Percy has accomplished in the last year it feels... silly, in retrospect. There's a wind in her heart that blows down to her feet and keeps them moving, but sometimes she wishes she were more of a tree, the way Keyleth is. It would be nice, she thinks, to dig in some roots.

She blinks the haze out of her eyes and sets her brandy to the side.

"Nothing important," she continues after a moment, glances at Trinket over her shoulder. He's snoozing happily, curled up as much as his armor allows and drooling copiously into the carpet. She winces.

"Nonsense," Percy says, simply, in that prim _my word is law_ way that he's always had, that being a Lord has sharpened to a fine point. "I find it rather hard to believe that anything you do is even capable of being unimportant." He blinks slowly into the fire, his mouth going slack for one moment, and she is _sad_ that the smile has gone. Then he looks up at her again and it's back, a bit tighter, a bit forced. "I've found myself missing it, truthfully. Just... wandering." His eyes scan the room slowly, taking in the comfort and grandeur of the study. "I spent so long without responsibility. Now that I have so much of it..." He sighs and sets his own drink to the side, then stares down at his hands as if not sure what to do with them before finally pulling her feet out from under him and drawing them into his lap. He runs his thumbs up the arch of them, mindless of the dirt and calluses, and she nearly melts into her chair. He smiles in response and digs in a bit harder.

"I would love to hear tale of your travels, my dear," he finishes. And, a bit lazy, a bit giddy, she tells him.

\--------

A few scant days after she arrives in Whitestone, the city is hit by a blizzard. When they finally have occasion to speak Cassandra tells her, a little worried, that it's one of the worst they've had in a while, and the two de Rolo siblings spend much of the next week locked in the Council chambers, discussing preparation for the city until the weather calms enough for trade to start again.

Vex'ahlia spends the first few days a bit put out, both because her friend is absurdly busy and because now she's _stuck_ here until the blizzard passes over them. She pouts and stalks more the infrequently used servants passages for a time, then decides that she needs to get over herself and help. So, while Percy handles the political aspect of it, Vex and Trinket slog out into the snow and offer their services patching up sagging roofs and reinforcing the housing of the lower class citizens, clearing slush off of the roads, and occasionally cuddling up to children who've caught cold, since the youth of Whitestone seem more enamored than intimidated by the big lumbering bear.

"You don't have to do any of this," Percy says, after the Council has decided on a definitive course of action, and now stuck behind a desk and signing various things that require the acknowledgement of a Lord. He seems a bit frazzled but genuinely apologetic, eyeing her nervously like he expects her to disappear into the snow. She'd discovered soon after arriving that she's the first member of Vox Machina he's seen since the group disbanded, and he seems to be clinging to her for some semblance of normalcy. "You're my guest, it's not necessary."

"Percival," she replies, eyebrow raised and one hand resting on a cocked hip. The way he follows the motion briefly before snapping his eyes back up to hers is a bit gratifying. "If I have to stay cooped up in this dreary castle the entirety of this storm, I will go mad. I can help. Please, let me."

"Dreary," he mocks with a grumble, and though he huffs and puffs about it being improper he still outfits her with warm furs and a new pair of boots, sending her off into the city with a tiny, thankful smile.

The blizzard lasts two full weeks, an entire fortnight of snow and sleet, and by the time the sky has cleared there's enough snow on the ground that Vex can't move through it without Trinket pushing through ahead of her, and even he has difficulty.

In the commoner's section of the city, where the peasants and farmhands live, two houses have collapsed under the weight of the snow, and two more require major repairs before they're safe to live in. Percy, with a frown that looks severe but that Vex knows is just worried, takes the families into the castle to shelter them.

At this point Percy resembles a raccoon more than a man; the role of a Lord is one that requires many arms, and between getting those families he'd accepted into the castle secure, working with the quartermaster to secure food and basic necessities for them, and dealing with all the other various and sundry problems the blizzard has caused, Vex knows that he's had little time to sleep and even less time to relax.

Vex finds and corners him after a meeting with the other Council members. He's talking quietly with his sister, arms crossed over his chest and brows furrowed. It does interesting things to the cut of his jacket, a much finer thing than he'd ever worn while traveling with Vox Machina that she's grown to appreciate for how it frames his figure, and she pauses before he catches sight of her to just take a moment to look. Then Cassandra glances over his shoulder and sees her, and one of her eyebrows slowly raises.

Vex has no hard feelings against Cassandra. Perhaps if Percy had been angry, then anger would have been an easier thing for herself as well, but as it stands she and Cassandra share a sort of warm indifference for each other, their only true connection being that of Percival. Vex gives her a sort of cheeky wave, and Cassandra stares for another moment before rolling her eyes and smiling, the action making her look closer to her true age than hardship normally allows. She murmurs something to Percy, who twists to look at her. His face lights up for the briefest of moments before it's schooled back into it's typical mild neutrality.

"Vex'ahlia," he greets, turning fully to face her and dipping his chin. He's been doing that more, lately, treating her with less familiarity, more formality, than he used to. The last few weeks have been hard on him, she knows that, but she wonders what whispers she's not hearing that have made him drop the _dears_ and _darlings_ of days gone past.

Having no such qualms herself, she darts forwards and grabs his hand, saying cheerily, "Cassandra, darling, I'm going to borrow your brother for a bit. Ta!" As she pulls an unresisting but clearly flummoxed Percy behind her, she sees Cassandra tilt her head back and stare at the ceiling as if asking any deity listening for patience.

She leads him through the halls, retracing steps that she's walked a dozen times now, and Percy says, "Vex'ahlia?" She hums in reply but doesn't speak, tugging him along until they reach his study. "Vex?" he tries again, a bit exasperated now, "Vex, what is god's name is going on?"

Whipping around, she pokes him in the chest with the hand not still holding onto his; his palm is warm and slightly damp with sweat in hers, which is good, because as far as she's concerned every man should be at least slightly intimidated by her. "You," she says, emphasizing the word with another poke, "are incredibly stressed, and are going to relax. I am going to help you."

His eyebrows shoot up and the grip he's got on her fingers tighten slightly.

"Not like that," she corrects, ears burning a bit when she realizes the connotations of her words.

"Pity," he says with a grin, which doesn't help things, but the way he laughs when she glares at him makes up for it a bit. Still holding his hand, she guides him towards the small table beneath one of the windows in the study, and pushes him into one of the seats that flank it, gesturing at what she's set up there with a flourish.

Percy blinks down at the board, and then up at her where she's still standing beside him. "Chess?" She nods and takes a seat across from him, straightening her pieces in front of her. "If I recall correctly," he says slowly, resting his elbows on the table and setting his chin in his hands, eyes narrowing at her, "the last time you and I played chess, I quite solidly trounced you, and you didn't speak to me for a week."

Puffing up like a bird, Vex reaches across the board to poke him again, but he bats her finger away with a smile. "You did not _trounce_ me, Percival, and I didn't speak to you for a week because you are a sore winner who _gloats_. Besides," and here she draws herself up to her full height, sitting straight-backed in her seat with her shoulders high, "I have been practicing the last couple weeks while you've been swanning about doing things that are not paying attention to me, and are therefore wrong." Percy glances up at the ceiling before closing his eyes; the resemblance to his sister is uncanny. "I _will_ beat you this time, darling," she finishes with a challenge.

Percy smirks in response, steepling his fingers together. "Oh, _darling_ ," he mocks, those specific words in that specific tone of voice sending a thrill up her spine, "I just bet you will."

He beats her in less than five minutes, which is surely a record. Vex's pride stings, but the triumphant glint in his eyes is worth it. He needed a distraction, needed a win, and in this case she is more than happy to provide.

"That was unkind," she grumbles anyway, and he smirks all the wider.

"Vex'ahlia," he says, in a lofty voice as if he's imparting unto her some great wisdom, "I have never claimed to be a kind man."

She interrupts with, "Doesn't mean you have to be an ass."

Continuing as if he hadn't heard her, Percy begins to reset the board. "I personally would much rather be a _good_ one."

"Kind, good." Vex picks up her queen and plays with it between her fingers, the way Vax taught her to do with coins when they were children. "Same thing."

"Indeed not. The world is filled with kind men, and many of them are liars. If I let you win, that may be what you would consider kind, but if I beat you and allow you to use this as a learning experience, wouldn't that be considered _good?_ "

"Personally I would consider that being an ass."

Percy leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. He's still smirking but his eyes are brighter, softer behind his glasses than she's used to normally seeing them. Yes, she thinks. This was well worth a stung pride. "Are you calling me a good ass? Because that would be an oxymoron. Now, saying I _have_ one, that I could see..."

Vex throws the queen at him, and his laughter rings through the study and out into the hallway beyond.

\--------

Three days later, they will both be glad of that brief moment of frivolity; the first child in the city dies of hypothermia, and Percy takes in several more families, accepting anyone with children of infant or toddling age, and sets them up in the castle's massive dining hall.

Vex finds it uncomfortably reminiscent of the refugees of Emon shivering and crying in the temple at Grayskull, a sentiment which she thinks Percy shares, if his furrowed brow and crossed arms are indication enough.

"We've enough in our stores for the extra mouths for a few weeks, perhaps," he murmurs, "but it will be tight and we may have to ration. We weren't anticipating the blizzard to last that long." When he notices her anxious eyes darting around, counting all of their charges in another habit that she apparently hasn't grown out of, he knocks his elbow into hers and smiles, a little strained but still there. "Chin up, darling, it's not so dire. Whitestone is used to inclement weather, we'll bounce back. You should see the rains we get in the spring."

"Oh, spring? You mean when you wanted me to visit?" she hums sarcastically, not truly feeling the levity of the moment, but Percy smiles and laughs and a few of the peasants turn to look, and seeing their Lord in good spirits seems to cheer them a bit. The parents look less distraught now and the children seem more inclined to explore their new quarters, poking around with wide eyes and staring up at the paintings of de Rolos past that line the walls.

Percy knocks into her again, smiling over his shoulder as he moves forwards before turning and speaking gently to one of his people, a nervous-looking woman who sketches a shaky bow and then stares at his hand when he offers in greeting, surprised.

Vex feels her heart warm a bit at the sight, then uses the opportune distraction to silently pad her way out of the hall.

\--------

She goes into the forest.

Now that the snow has finished falling, the woods surrounding Whitestone are silent and ethereal, white and green and brown, and she revels in it, in the smell and the feeling after half a month of languishing in a castle. Finding tracks is easy, too easy; she spends a good hour just sprinting between the trees, following hoof prints in the snow and then zigzagging off to the side, losing her way and then seeing if she can find it again as Trinket lopes behind her, kicking up snow and ice, clearly as excited to be loose as she is.

She climbs trees and collects eggs. She carefully harvests a bundle of pine needles. She finds her trail and then slowly, cautiously stalks along the snow, boots sinking in silently beneath her ranger's weight, until she finds and fells a stag, a great antlered thing that takes four arrows to put down.

When she reaches it, it's eyes are wide and rolling and it's breathing is labored and wet, back legs still kicking fruitlessly, and she draws her dagger and slits its throat to put it out of its misery. "Thank you, little brother," she murmurs in Elven, the language stumbling and awkward off of her tongue, but the stag seems to calm seconds before the light leaves its eyes.

She uses all of her strength to heft it up onto Trinket's back and the two make their way back to the city, slower and far colder in the waning light but just as cheery as before, spurred on by the romp in the snow.

As she passes the treeline, Vex pauses and places a hand on one of the pines, closing her eyes for a moment, before continuing on. The forest stands, silent and strong, behind her, watching her back as she makes her way forward.

The streets are silent but when they get there the castle is brimming with activity, feeding a few dozen extra mouths and trying to take stock of everything. Vex and Trinket beeline to the kitchens, the stag still slung over his back but thankfully having dripped all excess blood between the forest and the city, and everyone they pass stops and stares in surprise. Percival is nowhere to be found, but she's got other things to occupy her time; the cooks were shocked but ecstatic about the stag, and she helps them dress and clean the kill, tossing bits of offal to Trinket as she goes.

They use some of the meat for stew and roast some of it on a spit, they cook the eggs in a pan, and they make tea out of the pine needles. The kitchen smells earthy and musty, like the woods, like home, and when they bring out a massive pot of stew into the dining hall for the peasants holing up there to eat as they please there's a loud, resounding cheer.

Servants who aren't actively doing their duties come and join, the children dart about Trinket, laughing and climbing up his bulk while he lays there placidly, and the adults clap Vex's shoulders as they pass by, clasp hands with her, a good meal and a warm hall turning the somber mood of the morning completely around in the evening.

All chatter stops when the dining hall door opens and Percy strides through, then freezes just inside the doorway. His eyes sweep over the room and land on Vex'ahlia, then narrow; unafraid, she raises her cup of pine needle tea towards him with a smile.

Everyone's gaze follows him as he steps forward, calmer now, and stops before where she's seated on top of the table, feet kicked up onto the back of a chair. His eyes, a cold blue like the sky after a heavy snow, never leave hers. Her smile grows a bit wider, a bit darker. In this moment, a frisson of heat passes from his gaze to hers.

Vex bites her lip and lifts her cup to her mouth to hide it.

_Interesting._

Slowly, Percy reaches out and takes the cup from her hands. She lets him, and everyone watches at he brings it up to take a sip. He holds it, swallows.

Then, loud enough that everyone can hear, says, "This _still_ tastes like dirt."

The grin that overtakes her is surely dazzling, and likely manic; this is an old joke of theirs, one that started out as an argument and became nearly a ritual whenever they made camp.

"You just have no taste for wild things, darling," she replies, and moves to take it. Before she can he knocks the whole thing back, throat working against the whiskey she'd flavored it with. He's not sticking to the script and she's delighted by it, breathless with anticipation as he steps a bit closer, leans in to set the cup down on the table at her side, and hovers there to speak, close enough so that only she can hear him.

"I think you'd be surprised, my dear," he says into her ear, like a warning, like a promise, and then pulls back to face his people. "Let's thank the lady Vex'ahlia for providing us with this most gracious meal this evening," he calls out, loud enough for it to echo through the hall, but not loud enough to drown out the roaring cheer of the people as they raise theirs cups and bowls and plates in thanks.

Percy steps away and spends the next hour making the rounds through the crowd, checking on each person he sees and ensuring their good health and cheer. Every few minutes he'll glance up at her, face intense and that spark of heat still in his eyes. And Vex, who is still sitting on the table and only half paying attention to anything that anyone is saying to her, can only watch.

\--------

He catches her that night, on her way back to her room, and pushes her up against a wall, taking her by surprise.

She always forgets how quickly he moves, how quietly; not nearly as quiet as her brother, not even as quiet as she herself, but his steps are soft enough that she's always had to listen for them, that he's startled her several times over the years when she's not paying attention, and she's not thought to be on her guard here in the castle.

Still, she's quick to smother the squeak of shock it almost knocks out of her. In the dark of the hallway, shadows flickering in the light of a sconce further down along the wall, Percival looks dangerous, looks wild. For a split second she almost expects to see smoke pour out from his eyes and mouth, and her breath catches in her throat. But no, it's only him, only Percy, crowding her up against the stone at her back, his breath hard and steady against her face, so close that in the dim light she can see the flecks of gray in his blue eyes, each individual black eyelash behind his glasses.

He holds her there for a moment, but neither of them are under any illusion that she's trapped. His grip on her arm is tight but not painful, he's looming over her but slightly to the left, giving her space to duck away freely if she chose to. She could fight loose, but she doesn't have to. Her pulse, which had spiked in surprise and then calmed, picks up again.

"May I?" he murmurs, leaning in closer. It's just like him, she thinks, to bloody _ask_.

In answer, she grabs the lapels of his coat and yanks him forward.

He seems stunned, as if surprised by her response, until she bites at his bottom lip and pulls, and then he explodes into action. Hands come up to her face, frame her cheeks as he kisses her hungrily, then trail down, to her shoulders, further, to her waist, further still to her rump and then lift, forcing her higher up on the wall. Her legs go around him on instinct, holding her up and against him.

"Gods," he hisses, moving from her mouth to her ear, nipping at the point of it and wringing a gasp from her lips, "I have wanted this so _long_."

"Oh really?" she asks on a breathless laugh, hands sinking into his hair and tightening at the roots, holding him in place as he laves at her skin. It's astonishing, it's exhilarating, having Percy's immense focus and indomitable will set entirely on her. "How long?"

"Since the dragons." He pulls away from the wall and she clutches at him on reflex. "Since the rebellion." He tries to open the door to her room but is having trouble finding the latch and holding her at the same time. She wiggles loose and he fumbles with it, pushing her through the doorway and throwing it shut once more as soon as her feet hit the ground. "Since the Take." She's never felt fucking _further_ away from a bed than she feels right now, but all attempts to turn and make for it are stayed by his hands, pulling at the ties and clasps of her armor. "Since the Underdark."

Leather is so _difficult_ to peel oneself out of and her leggings are giving her such _trouble_ , her blood pumping hot and wild, the way it hasn't in years, not since she was a teenager, fingers stumbling and catching at every ill opportunity, but when she finally gets them loose the backs of her knees hit the edge of the bed and she falls backwards. Percy finishes the job, following the seam of her pants going down, down, down, until he's kneeling before her on the floor and her hands dig into his hair again.

"Gorgeous," he groans against her skin, close, too close, not close enough, and she laughs again.

"Flattery will get you everywhere," she tells him on a sigh, and he looks up at her with such a dangerous smirk that her thighs start to shake.

"Obviously," he says, uses the leverage of his hands against her ass to pull her forward and up, and then doesn't say anything else for a good long while.

\--------

Vex'ahlia likes sex.

She likes sex with women. She especially likes sex with men. Shay, for instance, had been interesting, if a little rougher than Vex's tastes normally run. Jarrett had been considerate enough, and fun besides. The two of them _together_ , though. Well. Vex had had trouble explaining the resulting limp off as a training accident.

Sex with Percy, however, is... interesting.

It's good, obviously, not that she was expecting anything else. Suffice it to say that one doesn't live and travel with another person without occasionally seeing them a bit more intimately than is perhaps meant.

It would be easier, she thinks, if sex with Percy was just about heat and passion, if she felt like they could fuck a couple times and get it out of their systems, or if he were overbearing about it and she had a reason to resent him. But it's not, and she doesn't.

The weather can't seem to make up its mind; the snow melts one week and then another foot falls the next. Vex hunts three or four times more in the next week, distributing food out among the townspeople as well as those stuck in the castle. Percy helps as much as he can with the logistics of everything, but for the most part Whitestone just has to play the waiting game.

And all the while, the two of them are having sex.

Sometimes he finds her and sometimes she finds him, and sometimes one will want something but the other doesn't have the time or inclination. Sometimes it's hot and frantic and desperate, like the first time, a culmination of everything they never said to each other over the years and still won't say now. Sometimes it's clumsy and silly and ends more in laughter than anything else.

It's all good, and it all hurts.

Vex cannot stay in Whitestone.

After a month and a half her muscles start to itch under her skin, desperate for movement and action that sex can't satisfy. Maybe she finds wandering meaningless but she _needs_ it, needs the road beneath her feet and the wind blowing through her hair. Her afternoon hunts aren't cutting it anymore; she plays with her kills like a cat, chasing deer and wild boar for half a mile and then letting them go, only to pick up the trail again an hour later just to prolong her time in the woods.

Trinket becomes more and more reluctant to return to the city, stopping stubbornly at the treeline after each jaunt and needing an increasing amount of cajoling to move. Where he used to be amiable to the servants and children of the castle, he now sleeps outside the stables, eyeing everyone who passes and curling his lip back, as if daring them to come close.

The sex is great, and _Percy_ is great, but this is not her home, and she cannot stay.

\--------

Percy wakes her up late one night sliding out of bed.

"Mmm," she mumbles, rolling over to where she'd last felt his warmth against her back, patting the sheets fruitlessly. She hears as if through water, the haze of sleep still hanging heavy over her head, a soft chuckle, and then the mattress dips and settles at her side. Eyes still closed, she throws out an arm until it connects with his waist, and then wraps around it, clinging like a limpet. "No."

"Yes," he argues, but laughs. A hand cards through her hair, rucking up the day's braid that she was too lazy to take out before sleep. She grumbles and finally opens her eyes to blink at him. In the dull light she can see his state of dress, the same casual clothing that she last remembered tugging off of him and leaving on the floor now pulled back on messily, the disheveled appearance more likely than not due to the fact that his shirt is now missing a few buttons. She allows herself to feel a bit of sleepy satisfaction at that before refocusing.

He gets like this sometimes, her Percy.

There is an ache in him that time and sex and even revenge can't soothe, and when he feels it he must get up and work. That's how Bad News came to be, she knows, how he undid and remastered Ripley's gun, how he created his Diplomacy. Orthax may have come and gone, but Percy was a tinkerer far before the demon's influence. It's a quirk of his, she knows, to wake suddenly and have to run to his workshop, to do something with his hands to chase away whatever whispers still haunt him in his dreams, to build, to make, to _create_. It used to worry her so, back at Grayskull, back when they were both still Vox Machina, to know that Percy was alone in his workshop at night, with no one to keep him company but the shadows at his back. But she understands it now, and she appreciates it, that he has somewhere safe, some place of calm to retreat to when the roaring in his mind gets too loud for him to drown out on his own.

She just wishes he wouldn't get like this when it's so bloody _cold_. For a twig-stick of a man, Percy puts off heat like a furnace, and Vex has grown used to the feel of his skin against hers, to the puff of breath against the back of her neck when he sleeps. She would blame it on the winter chill if asked, but she can't deny that she genuinely enjoys the proximity.

"Go back to sleep," he says gently, fingers sliding through her hair to trail across her cheek before leaving entirely. The mattress dips again and then he is gone, the door shutting softly behind him. Vex curls herself up tight in the remnants of warmth that he's left behind.

She will miss it, she thinks tiredly, when she leaves.

\--------

Two months into her stay at Whitestone, six weeks after they started sleeping together, Percival is called into the Council chambers and comes out several hours later, a deep frown marring his face.

She follows him into his study, the one he'd taken her to the first day she'd arrived, the one he'd taken her _in_ just a few days ago, and though he doesn't refuse her company he also doesn't engage her, whether in conversation or in intimacy. Vex, who's grown used to both their long discussions and his physical attention, tries to pull him out of his foul mood, unwilling to leave him to stew in whatever has sparked his anger.

"Darling," she sighs, standing at the side of his chair and running her hands through his hair soothingly. "Come into the woods with me. When was the last time you left the castle?"

Percy stares down into his glass of brandy and says nothing.

"You could use the fresh air," she tries, scratching her nails against his scalp, a move that she's discovered will usually leave him helpless and lax. "Come along, please."

He doesn't even react, and she sighs harder. "Alright, how about this," she murmurs, sliding along the edge of the chair and slipping into his lap, tucking her feet into his side. He glances at her and raises an eyebrow, but it doesn't pull out a smile like she'd hoped. "I'll wait out by the stables with Trinket, and if you aren't there in half an hour, I'll leave you be and we can talk about it tonight."

After another few seconds of silence, Vex dips her head in, pushes her forehead against the side of his cheek, then pulls back to give him a quick peck. His head lifts up and threads into her hair, holding her close to him, and she holds her breath at finally getting a reaction. He turns to look at her full-on, eyes scanning her face from top to bottom, before he leans in. The kiss he gives her is soft, lingering, the way he kisses after a hard fuck, when the intensity has worn away. For a moment she swears she sees something, something dark and hard moving in the depths of his eyes, but no.

This is no monster. This is only a man, whose lover she has become.

This time when she pulls away, he lets her.

Leaving the study and making her way to the stables, she's stopped in the halls by a hand on her wrist, catching her and making her jump; Cassandra, it seems, is more naturally inclined to stealth than her older brother.

"Vex'ahlia," she greets, and then bites her lip.

The two siblings look... astonishingly alike, Vex thinks. They have the same sharp, hooked nose that family paintings seem to suggest most de Rolos share, though time doesn't seem to have treated Cassandra as well as her brother. Already she's developing lines in her face, and whereas Percy's all-white hair makes him look striking and distinguished, the streaks that cut through her own chestnut locks make her look prematurely gray and tired.

But there is the same softness to the mouth, the gentle upturn of lips that can so easily hide a silver tongue.

She remembers, very suddenly, that Cassandra is on the Council of Whitestone as well. She cocks her head curiously, but the Lady de Rolo just stares at her and then heaves a sigh.

"It's... nothing. Sorry. Family business, shouldn't involve guests."

And then she bustles away, leaving Vex standing in confusion in the hall.

She glances back over her shoulder towards Percy's study, then gives a sigh herself and makes her way to the stables.

Outside, Trinket watches her moodily, head resting on his front paws. The first few weeks he'd delighted in having his armor removed, would gambol about in the snow while Vex cooed about him being naked and Percy watched with long-suffering amusement. Now he won't let her take it off of him, even going so far as to lift his lips in warning when she reaches for the straps.

"I know, darling," she murmurs, reaching out to place a hand on his head. He follows the movement with narrowed eyes before finally acquiescing, leaning into the touch. "I know."

They wait. Ten minutes, fifteen, twenty, until Vex is shivering against the inactivity and staring longingly out across the courtyard and to the gates of the castle.

Finally, when she's shouldered her quiver and is about to leave, the doors connecting the stable to the castle open and Percy steps out into the snow, donned in his old leathers and gunslinger's coat. A new gun, one that she hasn't seen before, rests at his hip, and they stare at each other silently for a long moment, overcome with a sort of painful nostalgia, at least on her part, before he gestures towards the gates with his head, letting her take the lead.

The trek out of the city and into the forest is quiet save for the sound of snow crunching beneath Trinket's paws; Percy's steps are nearly as silent as her own and he immediately drops back into the habit of placing his boots in her footprints, following her pace exactly the way that Vax had taught them all to do when trying to avoid traps. When they reach the woods outside of the city, his shoulders start to loosen and his head raises a bit higher, the cold mountain air helping exactly the way she'd hoped it would.

She glances back at him, gives him a wink and a smile, and then dashes off into the woods.

He chases, and Trinket follows, the three of them running like predators through the trees, breathless laughter and the panting of exertion the only conversation passing between them. She leaps clear over a fallen tree and seconds later he vaults across it, coat whipping and cracking behind him, and they run, and they run, and they run.

After a few minutes of directionless wandering, she skids to a halt and holds up a hand, feels him press up against her back, hands on her hips as he looks over her shoulder. He's hard against her, the puffing of his breath hot against the nape of her neck, but it's an afterthought as she points to show him that across the forest floor slightly up on a hill, perhaps thirty feet away, there's another stag, this one smaller than the first but she knows the meat will be no less filling for it.

Percy hums in her ear, an acknowledgement of the target, and raises an eyebrow at her, looking pointedly at her bow. She gives a tiny shake of her head, and he nods, takes a step forward, draws his gun.

This new thing is somewhere between the pepper-box and Bad News, two barrels side-by-side that are longer than the former and wider than the latter, and though he doesn't take a knee to steady his aim his legs do kick apart, clearly bracing his weight to take an impact. He inhales, slowly, holds it--

She covers her ears just in time to muffle the crack of the gun, an echoing retort that sends birds scattering from the trees above and into the sky. The stag, she sees, is most certainly down, and in fact looks like it's had most of its front half blown off. Her eyebrows shoot up, ears still ringing despite the protection of her hands, and Percy turns to give her a sheepish smile.

"It's possible that I've never used this gun on a live creature before," he admits, holstering it. "I wanted to see what it would do." He then glances down at the ground, and she follows his gaze. The bullet casings left behind are massive. Then he looks back over to the ruined carcass of the stag.

"You think it'd be worth carting that thing back to the castle?" he asks. Vex looks up at the sky, notes that the sun is sinking faster than she'd thought it would, and sighs, a plume of mist rising up into the air.

"Probably not. They've still been picking at that boar I brought back two days past." She reaches out, wiggles her fingers at him in request. "Come on, darling. Scavengers will make use of the poor thing just as well as we would."

He stares at her hand for a long moment before taking it. The giddy feeling of movement, of the chase, of running with him again after so long has passed, and the somber look on his face from earlier has returned. The hike back to the city is made in silence, and it's not until after they've passed the treeline that Vex looks up and realizes something.

"Trinket?" she calls out, glancing around. The bear is nowhere to be seen. "Trinket? Darling, where are you?"

Percy drops her hand, brings both his own up to cup around his mouth and shout his name. It echoes through the trees like his gunshot had earlier, but there's no response, and the sun has past set.

"He'll be fine, Vex," he says, hesitantly. "He probably got distracted by something, or the stag was too tempting to walk away from." He puts a hand on her shoulder and draws her away, back towards the city, and she goes reluctantly. "He knows where home is, he'll be back at the stables when you wake up tomorrow, just watch."

She keeps her opinion to herself, and shivers the entire walk back to the castle.

As they're walking to Percy's room, he stops very suddenly and sighs, twisting to lean against the wall. Sensing that whatever has weighed on him all day is finally going to be brought to light, Vex stills and tucks her hair behind her ears.

"The Council wants me to get married," he says, staring up at the ceiling, "and father an heir." The dread that's kept an easy grip around her heart all day clenches and her stomach drops so quickly that it _hurts_. "I am the last surviving male of the de Rolo family, and maybe the lordship isn't as important as it used to be now that there's a council, but.." He sighs again, drags a hand through his snowy hair. "I do not want to think about a Whitestone without the de Rolos."

"Do not ask me to do this," she warns, standing her ground but wrapping her arms around herself. "Do not." She doesn't want it, she _doesn't_ , because maybe she _does_ , and if he asks and she says yes then she will resent him and if he asks and she says no then she will resent him, and she cannot, she's too rebellious, too free, she was not meant for this, she will ruin it, she _cannot_ \--

"Vex. Vex'ahlia." Arms wrap around her and hold her tight, and she struggles for a moment before leaning into him. "Vex'ahlia. I would never ask this of you." He presses a kiss to her forehead and she ducks away before letting him. She's not crying, though it still feels like a haze has fallen over her vision, and she can see that he's smiling a sad, terrible little smile. "I think that you may be too wild for me, after all. Too wild for anyone, perhaps."

She moves to pull away, putting actual force behind it now, but he holds tight. "It's not happening tomorrow," he whispers into her hair. "Stay with me. At least until the thaw. Stay." He kisses her, soft, like she'll drift through his fingers like smoke if he squeezes too hard. "Please."

She sighs, and lets him pull her to his room.

\--------

That night, afterwards, after he's had her slow and gentle and then again hard and bruising, she slides out of his bed and pads silently down the halls of the castle, to the guest room that she hasn't actually used in several weeks.

She pulls on her leathers and picks up her bow and her quiver, and after a moment of deliberation she leaves the boots he'd given her by the doorway.

Outside, at the edges of the forest where the trees start to grow thick and wide, Trinket waits for her, a massive shadow looming in the frigid winter's night air. He nudges her with his head, his breath hot and coppery against her face, and gives her a little lick when she scratches beneath his chin. "Oh darling," she says gently. "You have always known what is best for me, haven't you?"

The air is cold and the sky is dark, but she knows if she moves fast enough her muscles will warm, and if she walks long enough then the sun will rise. There are forests and mountains and rivers and roads, and Whitestone is just one stop, one little blip on the map, and she still has so very far to go.

Vex'ahlia wanders off, barefoot, through the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: grif maybe you shouldn't start another project when youve already got one major one going on rn  
> also me: stfu


	2. SUMMER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was kinda nervous about this part bc i personally am super leery about fics with OCs in them but then i remembered that this is basically just a steaming load of self-indulgent word diarrhea so fuck it

The thing about the road is that, when one spends most of one's time traveling, one also spends most of one's time thinking.

This is, surely, doubly so when one's sole companion is a bear. An incredibly intelligent and empathic bear, but a bear nonetheless.

And so in the time that follows Vex's flight from Whitestone, an unfortunate abundance of it is spent _thinking_.

Family is not a concept that she's ever put much consideration into; not a family of her own, anyway. Family in general is rather important to her, or at least clinging to what family she has, that being mostly her brother. For a long time, for the vast majority of her life, she'd simply assumed that it would be her and Vax, and of course Trinket, from start to finish, especially after the death of her mother. She has little interest in the blood from her father's side, and until Vox Machina became a thing, Vax was the only family she'd ever felt she'd needed.

And then Keyleth happened, and Vax left, and she doesn't begrudge him of that because he is _happy_ and that is all she's ever wanted, is for him to be happy, even if it hurts.

So no. She had not considered creating a family of her own, and most assuredly had not considered marriage. Vex'ahlia is not exactly the shining example of a maiden, never really has been, has always contented herself with playful rolls in the hay with whoever happens to have her affection at the time and then a gentle break that she prefers to be mutual when she feels the time to end such things has come.

Vex likes flirting, she loves sex, and she appreciates the intricacies of romance from a distance and when it's happening to other people.

Relationships, she's always had trouble with.

And with Percival, it's just-- there's so much to consider, so many different factors to take in. Perhaps if he were not a Lord, perhaps if she would not be expected to bear children, perhaps if she were _human_ \--

But he is, and she would be, and she's not. She cannot ask him to give up Whitestone, he cannot ask her to have children, and even besides that, Vex has already resigned herself to the idea that she will outlive several of her friends by many, many decades. After all, just because she has no interest in her father's blood doesn't mean she doesn't have it.

She doesn't know if her heart has the capacity to lose a lover on top of that, as well, and she's yet to have occasion to test it.

Let it have been a long weekend, she decides finally, a lovely vacation to look back on in the future, a final nod to the years of sexual tension and flirting. Let it have been simple fun, and nothing more complicated than that. Vex'ahlia didn't go to Whitestone in the business of looking for a husband, after all.

And so she wanders, and she thinks, and the road continues on ahead of her, as it is wont to do, and neither it nor she nor the bear think to dwell on how some mornings her feet seem to tread perhaps a bit slower or more reluctantly than they used to.

\--------

It is a very long time before she sees another raven from Whitestone. Half a year, roundabouts, using the calendars of man, and it's been a half a year of movement for Vex. A month after she left Percival in his bed to disappear into the snow the quiet forests of Tal'Dorei seemed to lose their appeal; where before the calm silence of the trees was comforting and tranquil, it seemed to grow suddenly stale, and the humming of the wind through the leaves and branches was like a whisper in her ears, saying, _Go, go where your feet take you, and we will be here waiting when you come back._

Stubborn pride and spring rains keep her from returning to Whitestone, but that's fine, there are other towns and cities along the road. She leaves the woods and the scent of pine needles behind, treks across the cobbled stones and man-made paths. Taverns and inns are nearly as much of a comfort as the trees are, another habit to fall back on, though one that's perhaps less dear to her heart. She enjoys attention when it is aimed at her, laughs and smiles and winks her way south, and sometimes falls into various beds, because she is not a woman of promises and she wouldn't have made one to Percy even if she were.

If her time in Whitestone taught her anything, it is that peace and quiet have their moments, and company and friendship have theirs, and for the first time in a long time she thinks about Vox Machina together in its entirety, not just the various pieces that make up the whole, and she _misses._ She misses Tiberius's grumbling at the dining table as he tries to eat and read at the same time. She misses Scanlan's obnoxious singing in the wee hours of the morning. She misses how Keyleth always left flowers everywhere in the Keep during springtime, permeating the halls with a floral scent and sometimes tempting bees in on accident. She misses Pike's patient smile, and Grog's roar of a laugh, and the way there would occasionally be an explosion in Percy's workshop that would send him scurrying out, wide-eyed and disheveled and insisting, "No no, really, we should just let the smoke clear out, honestly, it'll be fine, _Grog do not go in there!_ "

Freedom had been such a novelty, such a rarity, that she'd let it overcome her at first, and it feels like only now does she fully understand the loss of what she'd had.

The road goes on, and the forest will wait, and there are woods and mountains and rivers to explore, but in a tavern somewhere between Stillben and Emon, Vex realizes that she is inexplicably _tired_.

It's dawn when she leaves, Trinket on her heels as they head towards Zephyra to see Keyleth and her brother, and a bird alights on a fence post to her left and cocks its head, sleek black feathers almost seeming to shimmer in the morning sun, a message scroll tied to its leg. The raven caws at her, and Vex sighs, "Oh, Percy."

_Lady Vex'ahlia of Vox Machina,_ it says when she removes the message, _you are cordially invited to celebrate the union of--_ and then she balls it up and throws it over her shoulder. The raven screams and shrieks, flapping angrily, but Vex is moving on, is moving forward, is keeping her head up and her chin high. She has not cried in years and the gods help her but she will not do so again now. After all, Percy didn't make her any promises, either.

It takes her another two months' easy travel to reach Zephyra, during the interim of which she will later discover that a wedding has come and gone, but when she reaches the foothills of the mountains that house the Air Ashari her brother is waiting for her, arms wide open and smiling like a knife.

"Hello, stubby," he says, and the gods may help her all they want but damned if she doesn't cry.

\--------

They very carefully don't discuss Percival's wedding, though Vex knows that both Keyleth and Vax went. She's not sure what Percy might have told them, if anything, but they seem to know that something passed between her and the Lord of Whitestone in the last year that caused her to continue south instead of turning back north, though Vex can't imagine that they know anything close to the full story simply by virtue of the fact that Vax likely wouldn't have left Percy with any working equipment to father children with at all if he'd known even half of what they'd gotten into. The Headmistress of the Air Ashari and her Consort were invited, of course, and thanks to Keyleth's handy tree teleportation spell they were able to pop over to Whitestone for a week for the wedding and then make it back to the Ashari with more than enough time to spare to wait for Vex.

"A quick wedding," Vex notes to herself the night she arrives, after she's thoroughly wet Vax's fine Consort's robe with her snot and tears and he's given her an abridged version of the celebration.

Keyleth is out among her people, _communing with nature_ Vax had explained with a fond eye roll, and so it's just the siblings and Trinket in the house made specifically for the Headmistress. The Air Ashari all live in tree houses ten or so feet off of the ground, singing the wood into the desired shape instead of cutting down trees. Vex has always liked it here, for all that she's never felt the urge to stay for longer than a week.

"It'd been in planning for a few months, apparently. Dear Percival seemed a rather bit overwhelmed, truth be told, though I doubt anyone but those very close to him noticed." Vax plays with her hair and Vex hums, nuzzles a little closer to his chest. The two are curled around each other, close and intimate, the way that only two people who once shared a womb can be. For all that Vax has found his place here and Vex still seems to be searching for hers, there is still a connection between them that neither time nor distance can erode away; when he breaths, air fills her lungs. When she blinks, his eyes close. It is a love that she doesn't have to question, that doesn't require promises. She can travel all she wants, but every road will lead back to him eventually.

She doesn't really want to talk about it, doesn't want to think about the little kernel of sadness that's been nestling and taking root in her heart for months and months, but she cannot help herself, and asks, "Did he seem happy though, brother?"

Vax is quiet for a long moment before sighing, and he runs a hand through her hair. "Yes, sister. In his own, understated Percival way, he seemed happy."

Silence stretches between them while she thinks on that, and then nods. "Good," she says, and means it.

"What about you, though, Vex?" he wonders, picking at the end of her braid and tugging on the separate strands absentmindedly. "Are you happy, I wonder, wandering around all on your lonesome? Don't you ever get tired?"

All the time, Vex thinks, and yet only recently.

"I was, and then I wasn't. I am, and then I'm not." She grabs his hand, pulls it away to inspect his fingers. The calluses at the tips suggest that he still practices with his daggers, though the earth beneath the nails is new. He's been playing in the dirt, then. Unsurprising, considering who he's basically married to. "It is a very difficult thing to put into words, brother. The feeling one gets when one is possibly going through an existential crisis but is also content with their life."

"Ah, Vex'ahlia," Vax says with a soft and sad little chuckle that she feels more than she hears, and she remembers who exactly it is that she's talking to. "I actually think I understand that rather well."

The difference between them, though, is that Vax has spent the last year seeking redemption for all of the misspent moments of their youth, and that Vex has spent the last year trying to relive them.

"Stay here with us, sister," Vax murmurs. He tugs on the end of her braid playfully but his voice is soft and sincere, genuine in his worry. "You've been by yourself for so long." She opens her mouth. "Trinket doesn't count." She closes her mouth.

"The hell he doesn't," she grumbles after a moment, but nestles in closer, tucking her head up under his chin.

It's not such a terrible idea, she thinks, to stay. Her brother, her family, is here, and her heart is still sore and tender from the consequences of her decision in Whitestone. She does not regret it-- she would make a poor Lady, and a poorer wife. Percival was right in that regard, anyway. She _is_ too wild for that.

It would be nice, though. To be with her brother again, to be with Keyleth, and not feel like she's giving up her freedom. It would be a lovely little compromise.

Apparently annoyed by her silence, Vax pulls at her hair again and jostles her, and she grunts and elbows him in the stomach, smirking into the fabric of his shirt when he lets out a surprised wheeze.

"Yes," she says finally, "I'll stay. But only for a little while."

\--------

A week stretches into a month. A month stretches into season. A season stretches into a year.

She has _missed_ her brother, missed him terribly, without truly realizing it, like she'd missed Percy but _worse_. She'd underestimated exactly how much she relied on him, how much of her personality was just a balancing act with his. Now that they're together again the sadness that's dogged her heels for longer than she'd realized is lessened, and she wonders just how much of her impulsive decision to sleep with Percy was actually just her attempting to bandage the gaping wound that the disbanding of Vox Machina left behind.

Time passes differently with the Ashari, secluded as they are in their own little pockets of the world, carefully tending to their elements. It's a different kind of magic, a different kind of _nature_ , one that she's been exposed to before but has never really understood.

Keyleth seems ecstatic that she's there, accepting her presence without questioning why she's suddenly decided to stay, and the Ashari welcome her cheerfully and with open arms. It's perhaps not as active a lifestyle as she's become used to, but it's a comfortable one, and one that encourages reflection; after some time passes and the ache in her chest subsides, Vex is able to more clearly think on her time in Whitestone with Percy without that knot of pain tightening it's grip.

Mutual attraction and understanding do not a romance make, and she was never much one for romance anyway. That's always been her brother, the soft-hearted bastard, much as he tries to hide it with a sharp tongue. It's okay, she decides. She does not love him, and she does not need him to be happy. Neither does she think that he loves her. Truthfully, in the deep places of her heart that she doesn't like to think about, she's always sort of wondered if Percy is even capable of loving someone else when so much of his time is spent hating himself.

For all that she's spent the last few years stubbornly chasing the wind in an attempt to make up for all of her time spent in Emon, she falls into the rhythm of living with the Ashari rather easily, far easier and less restlessly than the couple months she'd spent in Whitestone. This is likely helped by the tribe's wild nature, and the fact that she's occasionally called to help them put down any stray malicious elementals that wander through the shift in the planes. It's exhilarating, fighting alongside Vax and Keyleth again, to put down something bigger and more dangerous than a mountain lion that's stumbled across her camp, though there's always a hurt in her too, one that flares up when she twists to the side expecting a Goliath to come charging past, or when she just _knows_ that she could have made a shot if she'd had a little inspiration from Scanlan, or when her ears keep trying to catch the sound of Percy reloading his gun so she can cover him.

Vax catches her after one fight and claps her on the back, his smile sad for all that it's understanding.

"I know," he says as she tosses aside an arrow after inspecting its ruined fletching, something she'd never had to do when Tiberius was around to prestidigitate the feathers straight again. There must be something on her face that he can read, something that she didn't even realize was there. "I know, but you get used to it, eventually."

And she does.

\--------

Within her first year staying with the Ashari, Percival fathers his first child.

The raven that delivers the message to them is overburdened by the weight of three letters, one for each of them, and is incredibly irritable, perching high in a tree above them and glaring at the three half-Elves below and refusing to glide down to their level. "What is it about Whitestone that makes _all_ of its inhabitants so contrary," Vax huffs at her side, and Vex snorts.

"Something in the water," she says, crossing her arms.

Keyleth opens her mouth and screeches, the raven's beast-speak warbling out of her throat, and the bird cocks its head and squints at her for a moment before calling back. Keyleth gasps, one hand lifting to cover her mouth as she hisses, "How _rude!_ "

Eventually it deigns to flap down and lets Keyleth untie the messages, perching on her shoulder and playing with her coppery hair as she opens her own and reads it.

"Oh," she says, faint with surprise. "Percy has a daughter."

Vax's eyes cut towards her, but Vex's voice is mild when she says, "Well he didn't waste any time, did he?" She skims her own letter, only taking in half of what it says.

A daughter. What a strange, strange concept to her, Percy as a father. She knew it would happen eventually, but she thinks that some part of her is always going to see him as that broken man they'd found in a jail cell, as the shadow-beast in a bird mask. It's just so _surreal_ , that the man who's bled and sweated and cried on her would have a daughter.

"Oh, and he gave her an ungodly long name, too," Vax hums with a bit of distaste. "Johanna Something Something Blah Blah de Rolo the Number. I can't even pronounce half of this."

The name is, actually, not too terribly difficult to say, if perhaps one took their time and sounded it out. It reads as Johanna Adelaide Von Tekla de Rolo II, a name that isn't as hard on the tongue as Percival's, possibly due to the fact that it has a few less syllables. Still, it's a weighty thing for a child to carry. The letter itself invites her to the christening ceremony at Whitestone's official temple of Pelor in a few month's time, a grand building that she'd helped Yennen re-roof when the blizzard's snows had damaged a good portion of the shingling.

Vex has little desire to go, for all that she's happy that Percival has moved on with his life. What an awkward thing, she thinks, for the woman you'd shared a snowed-in month screwing into oblivion to show up at your child's christening.

"It sounds like fun!" Keyleth says brightly, flipping her letter over to see if there's anything written on the back. "I've never been to a christening before!" Which actually explains why she's so excited about the idea, considering how she normally reacts to anything involving religion outside of Pike's deity. "It'd be nice to see Percy again, too." She sends the siblings a hopeful look, and Vax glances back over to his sister.

"You two can go," Vex says with a shrug, folding the letter up and tucking it into the pouch at her belt. "I'll pass, though."

Keyleth's face falls and she runs a hand through her hair, upsetting the raven on her shoulder. It caws loudly and takes flight, clipping Vex's head with its wing as it goes, and she glares after it. _Just_ like its bloody master.

"Are you ever going to make peace with him, Vex?" Keyleth asks, biting her lip. Vax clears his throat pointedly, but Vex just shrugs again.

"I've nothing to make peace for. I bear Percival no ill will, which is why I will take the invitation in the manner that it's meant: a polite but insincere effort of inclusion." Keyleth opens her mouth to object, and Vex stops her with a sigh. "My presence won't do either of us any good, darling, though I do appreciate your concern."

Keyleth frowns at her, green eyes narrowing, and she crosses her arms. "Maybe I'm not concerned for _you_ ," she says, and then turns and stomps away.

"I'll talk to her," Vax says quickly, looking uncomfortable the way that he always has when the women in his life start fighting, and Vex sighs again.

"It's fine. I know they're close, she's entitled to being protective of him." She stares out over the forest floor, watches the Ashari go about their business with no knowledge of the disrupt that she feels in her heart. As she watches, one of the tribe's few children spies the raven perched on a low-hanging branch and tries to tempt it down to her reach, whispering at the bird under her breath.

Percival has a daughter. It's just so very _strange_. She almost has difficulty believing it.

When she looks back at his brother she sees that he's watching the same child with something gentle in his eyes, something approaching hope, and she glances away again.

"If I go with her," Vax says slowly after a minute or so of silence, "and you stay, will you be here when we come back?"

Vex takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. The air tastes like the woods, like the mountains, and the sun is warm even through the filter of the trees. She's not felt an itch in her feet for months, for all that her heels are still hard and calloused, and the pain she's carried in her heart seems like such a small thing now.

"Yes," she tells him finally, "I'll be here."

\--------

She stays for another year and some odd months after that before she feels it's time to move on, and Vax sends her off with a smile and a shake of his head.

"Keep in touch, sister," he says, ruffling her hair and tweaking her braid, and when she makes her way eastward down the mountain she waves her hand over her shoulder and doesn't look back.

The road is a long one, but she's got time to travel it, and the wildness inside her pulls her forward like a string. Rangers are not beasts meant for idle waiting, and though she's wandered far and wide in her life there is still much she hasn't seen.

At some point the loss of her potential with Percy scabs over and then fades from her heart with minimal scaring; by now almost more time has passed since her time in his bed than the entirety of their friendship before that, and it seems like such a terrible thing to lose over pettiness and embarrassment. When next she has the means to send a message she does so, inquiring to his health and Whitestone, to his children and his wife, to the friends she'd made during her time there, and within a few weeks he replies and they strike up a tentative correspondence again. He's got two now, both girls, and isn't that is a _hilarious_ thought.

"Damn, Percival," she says with a smile and a roll of her eyes when she reads the message announcing it, "two children in three years. Give the poor woman a break." Humans, she thinks to herself. They breed worse than rabbits.

She meets up with Scanlan somewhere along the road, shares a pint or two or six in some dusty tavern near Wildmount. She hasn't heard from Pike or Grog in ages, not her first few months with the Ashari, moving too far and too quickly for messages to reach her from such a distance, but Scanlan has kept in touch much better than she has, and it's nice to catch up. The next morning they both leave going the same direction, and he magnanimously decides that the path is big enough for the both of them to go together.

She forgets, sometimes, how much she likes Scanlan. Beneath the obnoxious perversion and the poop jokes, beneath the grandeur and showmanship, he's just a man who _tries_ so _hard_ to be good, and sometimes he fails and sometimes he succeeds, and she respects that. Besides, he's always seemed to have the same independent nature bordering on flightiness that she has, and when he's not jokingly trying to get into her pants he's a fine traveling companion.

A few days into their shared trek, a raven wheels overhead, cawing, and Scanlan looks up at the sky, shielding his eyes against the sun with a hand. The summer sun is high and hot above them, and the raven seems almost thankful when Vex raises a hand for it to perch on, blinking and breathing heavily, its beak open as it settles onto her bracer.

"Oh, poor lovely," she murmurs, stroking a finger down its back. "Here, Scanlan, take this and read it to me, we'll break for some water."

Scanlan breaks the wax seal with a raised eyebrow, following Vex as she pulls off of the road to find some shade beneath a tree. Trinket lumbers after her and settles into the grass heavily, panting himself and stretching out as much as he can. "This is Percy's crest, yeah?" the Gnome asks, plopping down and leaning against the trunk of the tree as Vex gently pushes the raven onto her bent knee, uncorking her waterskin and pouring some of it into her hands. The raven cocks its head at her suspiciously before dipping its beak into the water.

"Yes," she answers, her voice coming out in a coo. "Yes it is, isn't it?" She's grown _fond_ of the bloody birds, damn them, and she half thinks that it's the same one that comes to her with a message every time. The raven sends her a look that is clearly offended and hops to the ground, starting to preen itself and effectively ignoring her. She turns the waterskin to Trinket instead, who greedily laps at it as she pours it slowly into his mouth, ignoring Scanlan's whine of, "Hey, I wanted some of that!"

"You've got your own," she hums, scratching her bear behind the ears once he's had his fill, nearly emptying the skin. "But yes, that's the de Rolo crest. Percy and I have been trying to keep in touch a bit better lately."

Scanlan grunts and unrolls the message, eyes scanning its contents as Vex takes a moment to pour the remainder of the water over her head, sighing when the tepid water does little to cool her down. "He's knocked his wife up again," he hums, "or that's the gist of it, anyway. Lots of flowery language and bullshit explaining it, but yeah. Preggers."

" _Again_ ," she repeats with a scoff, undoing her damp braid and combing out her hair. "Humans."

"Humans," Scanlan agrees, which Vex thinks is a bit rich, coming from a Gnome. "Have you seen his kid yet?" When she shakes her head in the negative, he stretches out his legs, small as they are, and his voice takes on the deep, practiced timbre of a storyteller, clearly pleased at being in the spotlight. "I've only seen the older one, and only right at the beginning. Missed the coronation or the christening or whatever it's called, bastard said the invite got lost in transit--" The raven gives an offended caw, and Scanlan flicks a blade of grass at it. "Hush, you. You know what, I don't think he even sent one. Rude. Anyway, I'd just happened to be passing through the area and figured I'd pop my head in. I dunno what she's like now, but _damn_. Have you ever seen a human baby, Vex?"

"Yes," she says with a smile, offering her hand out to her bird friend, who pretends to ignore her but doesn't move when she runs a finger up the soft feathers on its chest. "Never really up close, but yes. I make it a point to stay away from infants, typically."

"Well, this one looked like a big fat potato." She twists to stare at him and he raises his hands defensively. "I'm just saying! I thought babies where supposed to be small but this thing was massive--"

"To be fair, everything is massive to you."

"--and it was red and lumpy and I was getting some serious potato vibes off of it, okay?" He leans back, crossing his hands behind his head and closing his eyes against the sun. "Not sure how someone as attractive as Percy could spawn a baby Beholder, but hey, I guess you can't win all the time. I'm just glad I missed that part with Kaylie."

There's a few minutes of quiet, punctuated by Trinket's snoring, before Scanlan says again, voice contemplative, "Hey, Vex?"

She hums, gently pushing the raven back up onto her fingers. It concedes with a guttural noise like a grumble and ruffles its feathers when she gives it a little poke on its beak.

"Why are you avoiding Percy?"

Pausing, she stares down at the inky feathers of the raven before turning to glance at Scanlan once more. He's got his serious face on, the one he wears when he's making speeches and issuing ultimatums.

"It's just," he continues, "you guys were always pretty close, right? Like, I'm not saying there was a betting pool-- and I'm _definitely_ not saying that I contributed to it-- but I may have lost a good bit of coin when he got married to some pretty noble lady and not you."

"Ah, the implication here being that I'm not pretty or noble, yes, thank you."

"I mean it!" Scanlan sits up straight now, leaning towards her with a frown. "Even if you guys didn't get up together, I never thought I'd see the day when you _avoided_ him. Three years, and you've never even seen his _kid._ "

Vex lifts the hand holding the raven and gestures at him with it, finally upsetting the bird enough that it screeches and takes off, flapping until it's risen high above them and circling twice before catching a wind and riding it westward. "I'm not avoiding him, Scanlan. We communicate. We send letters regularly, which is more than you and I have done since the group split. Besides, it's _complicated_."

"It's different," he insists, sighing theatrically. "You and I are different than you and him were, it'd be like if Pike and I never saw each other."

"And do you?"

" _Yes,_ " he says, emphatically, crossing his arms. The two of them stare at each other, neither willing to back down, before Scanlan finally drops his hands and runs one through his hair. It's grown longer than it used to be, nearly down to the small of his back, longer even than hers is. "I'm just worried about you, Vex. I think out of everyone in Vox Machina, I'm the most qualified to understand your weird ranger obsession with being a stoic loner roughing it out in the woods--"

She scoffs, and he continues louder, "and I sympathize with it! It's a big ol' world out there, and you and me, babe, we're just some tiny ants scurrying across it. But at some point," and here he reaches out to take her hand, his fingers tiny and fragile against her own, but just as calloused and rough at the tips, "we gotta stop and take a rest, yeah?"

\--------

After she splits with Scanlan, the two of them parting amicably a week later with no more serious conversation between them, she meanders around the eastern part of Tal'Dorei for a while. She considers Westruun, but is wary of the Clasp without her brother there as a buffer, and while Emon has its appeal she's just not sure if she's ready to see Grayskull standing empty yet. Time passes, more slowly than it sometimes seems but more quickly than she truly realizes, and to her surprise she receives no message from Percy announcing the birth of the de Rolo's third child.

In fact, his responses grow shorter and scarcer as the months pass, and she doesn't realize how much time it's been since she's heard from him until she catches herself scanning the sky fruitlessly every few hours for her raven friend. When her third letter is sent to no reply, Vex turns and makes her way west, keeping to the forests and mountains and checking in with her brother and Keyleth in Zephyra as she passes by. Neither of them have received any news, either.

"If you don't mind waiting for a while," Keyleth tells her, wringing her hands unhappily, "I can teleport us there with a tree. But I can't leave right now; the Fire Ashari sent a potential on his AraMente, and as Headmistress I have to wait for him to pass through."

Vex shares a look with her brother, and Vax nods his head. After she's stayed a week to rest and restock her supplies the two of them head out together, cutting north towards Whitestone.

\--------

Traveling with her brother, well and truly _traveling_ , after so long is a strange experience. Strange, but not bad; it's second nature to let him take first watch, to let him take point when they hunt, to curl up against him, back-to-back, when they sleep. With him urging them onward they takes less time to get there than it would have if she'd gone alone, and even if Trinket is grumbling at the pace Vax has set by the end of it, she can't deny that he's gotten them there faster.

Despite the absurd, unfounded fears that had taken root in her during Percival's silence, Whitestone itself is as cheery and welcoming as it was during her stay several years ago. By the time they reach it the dead of winter has come and gone, and for once Vex sees the city in the greens and yellows of spring, its people bustling by in lighter clothes as opposed to the thick furs and cloaks of her memory.

They garner some strange, interested looks as they pass through, but oddly enough the sight of Trinket seems to calm nerves rather than incite them. A few of the townsfolk that pass them actually stop and chat for a moment with Vex, who's perplexed but accepting until she realizes that she must have met these individuals during her last stay, either because she helped out around the town or because they'd been holed up in the castle with her.

"Popular here, sister?" Vax murmurs quietly after the fourth person has paused to welcome her back, even going so far as to pat Trinket on the flank as he goes by, and Vex shrugs.

"What can I say, I've never met a stranger."

When they reach the castle they're greeted not by Percy, but by Cassandra; the younger sibling looks frazzled and surprised by their sudden appearance, eyeing Vex with an almost nervous air. She does her best to look as open and unintimidating as possible, clasping her hands together in front of her.

"Ah," Cassandra says, and then under her breath, "oh, dear. Ah, welcome to Whitestone!" She looks back over her shoulder and huffs, gaze darting every which way as if searching for something. Oddly, the tension makes her look younger, less like a noble lady and more like a girl who's misplaced something and has been caught trying to find it. "We weren't expecting you!" Then she stops and turns back to them, eyes wide. "Were we?"

"I've sent messages," Vex says helpfully, following her steps as Cassandra ushers them through the castle, still glancing about anxiously. "But Percival seems to have been a bit, ah, busy of late. I've received no replies. We just wanted to be sure..."

"We wanted to be sure there was no funny business going on," Vax finishes, his voice hard under the levity he forces into it. Unlike her, her brother has never cared much for Cassandra. It's strange, she's always thought, how quick he can be to refuse forgiveness considering most of his actions are made seeking it.

"Busy, yes," Cassandra huffs, and directs them towards a waiting room that's outfitted to look like a study. It's not as homey as Percy's, Vex thinks as she glances around, not as welcoming. "My brother is actually in the city on Council business at the moment, but his wife is here if you'd like me to fetch her?"

Abruptly, an odd sort of nervousness takes ahold of Vex as she considers for the first time, at least consciously, that she'll likely be meeting the wife of the man she'd once had fairly strong feelings for-- strong enough that she'd scared herself into leaving.

"That won't be necessary," Vax says smoothly, stepping closer to her as if sensing her unease, placing a hand between her shoulder blades and offering comfort where Cassandra can't see it. "We can wait for Percival. I mean no offense," he continues with a smile, "but I'm sure dear Adelaide has her hands full with the girls and I wouldn't want to draw her attention away from something so important."

Inexplicably Cassandra pales. "Yes. The girls. Important." She sweeps around and nearly jogs back for the door, turning at the last moment and giving a short bow. "Just wait here then, I'll get him to you at once, good day," she says in a rush, and then is gone.

Vax waits until the patter of her steps is out of earshot, and then says coolly, "She's hiding something." Vex rolls her eyes and scoffs, feeling a bit defensive despite Cassandra's odd behavior.

"I highly doubt it's Percival's head in a cupboard," she huffs, stepping away from him and putting distance between them, the strange tension on top of the fact that she'll likely be meeting Percy's wife very soon making her supremely uncomfortable. Trinket picks up on her mood and stands close to the door of the waiting room in a pose halfway between standing and a crouch, ready to move at her command. "I think I've spent more time with her than you have, and I have full confidence in her mental faculties, brother."

"A fact which makes me doubt your own, sister," he says a bit moodily, dropping down into a chair and drawing a whetstone and one of his daggers. Vex stares at him for a moment before the nervous energy builds up in her legs, and then begins to pace.

Five minutes pass, and then ten. By the time half an hour rolls around the quiet _shnk shnk_ of the dagger and her own pacing has made her blood thrum a bit harder. What is taking Percy so long, she wonders? Perhaps something _has_ happened that she doesn't know about? Would she have sensed it in the townsfolk? Had she been here long enough, before, to know the difference now?

"I'm going to the toilet," she says finally, her heart beating so hard with dread that she can hardly stand it. She flees the room before Vax has a chance to say anything, calling for Trinket to stay there as she leaves.

The hallways are strange for all of a minute before the old familiar routes come back to her, her feet pulling her forward towards the guest room that she'd once stayed in-- no, wait, not there, too many memories. Percy's study, maybe she'll find him there-- but wait, she doesn't know if she can handle that right now. The kitchens, she decides, turning quickly to retrace her steps through the dining hall. She can hide there and wait for this to pass--

Something at the corner of her eye tickles at her perception, something moving above her, and without stopping the movement of her feet Vex turns and draws her bow.

In the rafters above her, a small child dressed in a cotton shift made for sleeping in sits perched on a beam, blinking wide eyes down at her, head cocked curiously.

Vex lowers her bow quickly and takes a deep, calming breath. Fool girl, she thinks to herself, getting worked up over nothing. When she speaks she has to force her voice to be gentle, but she impresses herself by how steady it is when she says, "Well, hello. You gave me quite a fright, you know."

The girl leans forward a bit and Vex's heart jumps for a different reason as she tenses to catch the child if she falls, but her grip on the rafter she's sitting on is strong. "Hello," the girl parrots, and then tilts her head the other way. "Who are you? I've never seen you before."

Vex laughs, her pulse finally beginning to slow with the welcome distraction, and puts her hands on her hips. "Just a traveler, passing through." From this distance the girl's age is difficult to tell, especially since Vex has never spent a prolonged period of time around children, but surely she can't be much younger than five to have climbed all the way up there. "How'd you get up there, little bird?"

The child's face screws up in distaste and she leans forward even more. "Don't call me that, I don't like it."

"And why not?" Vex asks, inching closer, still posed to catch her should she fall. "You're perched up there on your tree limb like a proper little bird, looking like you're ready to take flight."

"Emmett calls me a bird-face 'cause of my nose," she says matter-of-factly, and now that Vex is looking she can see that it is a rather unfortunate nose that the girl hasn't quite grown into yet.

"Who's Emmett?" Vex can't shake the feeling that she's seen this child somewhere, which is silly because she would have had to have been an infant at the very least the last time Vex was in Whitestone.

The girl plops down out of her crouch on the rafter and kicks her legs in the air above Vex's head. "The cook's son. Mama says he's a pill."

That startles a snort out of Vex despite herself. "Does your mama approve of you saying things like that?"

With a considering sort of frown, the girl thinks about it and then shrugs. "Papa says ladies aren't supposed to talk like that, but Mama calls Papa a pill too and she's a lady so I think it's okay." Then she winces as if remembering something and quickly corrects herself. "Sorry, I mean Father. I'm not s'posed to call him Papa in polite company."

Vex'ahlia gives herself an exaggerated once-over, plucking at her worn traveling clothes and wiggling her bare toes against the stone floor. The girl giggles at the sight. "I highly doubt I qualify as polite company, little bird."

"I'll say," the girl says, clearly delighted with the conversation, kicking her feet even harder. "You've not even introduced yourself yet."

"Well, neither have you," Vex accuses, crossing her arms, and the girl giggles even harder. Surely she knows this child from somewhere; perhaps she met her parents during the blizzard? There is something familiar about the shape of her face and the rich accent in her voice, one that reminds her--

Oh, fuck.

Vex's heart stutters for a moment before picking up its pace in double-time.

Still, she catches herself, hopefully before the dawning terror can find its way to her face, and her voice only shakes a little when she says, "You can call me Vex."

There's a delicate clearing of the throat before Percival's oldest child introduces herself with, "And you can call me Johanna Adelaide Von Tekla de Rolo." A pause, and then she finishes, "The Second."

If there were any possible time for the floor to fall out from under Vex, and if she were the kind of woman that prayed, she'd pray for it to happen now.

Johanna's face screws up for a second and then she exclaims very suddenly, "Wait, you're the bear lady!" And with a scramble of limbs that make Vex's heart jump to her throat again and stay there, she shimmies down from her seat, hanging from the rafters and reaching out to one of the unlit sconces on the wall with her toes as if to find purchase there.

Vex yelps in surprise and springs forward, arms out to catch her, but Johanna just scuttles down like a spider, her twig-thin arms catching her own weight with surprising strength, before she drops down to the floor entirely. She comes to a stop less than a foot away, face bright and excited, though there's a squint in her eye that Vex isn't sure is caused by suspicion or simple poor sight, which she knows can be hereditary, because _this is Percy's child_

Percy's daughter is standing. Right here. In front of her. _Percy's daughter_ just climbed down the wall out of the bloody _rafters_

Gods.

"Bear lady?" she says, incredulousness and surprise raising the pitch of her voice until it echos through the halls, but Johanna doesn't seem to notice her anxiousness.

"Yeah, my Papa-- oh, I mean, my Father, told me about you! He says you're kind of an elf," and she points, rather rudely to be honest Vex will have to talk to Percy about that, to her ears, "and that you have a bow," and she transfers that point now to the bow slung over her shoulder that she'd just aimed at _Percy's fucking child_ , "and that there's a bear!" She looks around frantically, even going so far as to lean around Vex to look down the hallway, before stopping and frowning up at her with a mortally wounded expression when she spots no bears in the vicinity, as if the fact that Vex doesn't have one currently with her is a personal slight.

"My bear is waiting with my brother," Vex says, feeling a little bit faint.

Now that the girl is closer and not half-shrouded in the shadows of the rafters, the resemblance to her father is nearly uncanny; they share the same nose and jawline, the same little upturn at the corners of the mouth that suggest a natural smile, though Johanna's seems genuine where as Percy's lips usually pull down into a frown. But for every similarity to him, Vex can find a difference. Her eyes aren't quite the same shape, her chin is perhaps not as sharp, and her hair is a rich dark chocolate brown, though truthfully this could just as easily be Percy's natural color.

She looks, in all honestly, like Percy mixed with someone else, which Vex supposes is exactly what she is. Gods.

That means Johanna is somewhere around four then, perhaps closer to five, though truthfully Vex hasn't put much effort into keeping track of time lately, which means she might have developed a bit faster than children normally do, just based solely on her vocabulary and frankly impressive display of acrobatics.

Johanna seems to accept this answer, though she still appears a little put out by it, and with as regal an air as a child of her age can manage she pulls herself up to her full height and holds one hand out, clearly expecting Vex to take it. "We should go to your bear, then," she decides imperiously. "I want to see him." She then glances down at herself and frowns heavily, picking at her cotton shift with her other hand. "But only if Cassandra isn't there because she'll make me go back to bed."

Cassandra's worry and anxiety from earlier make a lot more sense, suddenly, if she'd lost her brother's child. "Little bird," Vex says, and Johanna's brows furrow at the name though she doesn't say anything, "it's hardly past noon, why would you be in bed?"

"Because," Johanna says with a put-upon sigh, "she says that girls who've been up as long as I have need to take naps during the day, and also because I pushed Emmett down this morning and I'm being punished." And then she wiggles the fingers of her outstretched hand and looks at it pointedly, so Vex takes it, bemused.

"How long have you been up, then?" she asks, allowing Johanna to lead her back through the halls, gently steering her in the right direction after they take a few turns and it becomes clear that the girl doesn't actually know where they're going.

"Since dawn," Johanna says primly, and then begins to chatter happily, asking scores of questions as they walk that Vex barely has time to take in much less answer. Apparently Percy has been telling her stories about Vox Machina, because she's filled to the brim with inquiries about their adventures, apparently trying to match up stories to see if her father has been honest to her or not.

"Did Father really kill a dragon?" she asks as they approach the waiting room where Vex had left her brother and Trinket, the girl now trailing behind her and letting her lead, keeping a tight grip on her hand the whole while.

"I'm not sure if he ever made the kill shot, but yes, we've fought many dragons together," Vex answers, and Johanna's eyes widen even further. This coupled with her nose _does_ make her look rather bird-like, like a particularly startled owl, and Vex can see why this Emmett boy would make fun of her for it. "Did you think he was lying?"

"No," Johanna lies, though she does it quite convincingly, looking Vex straight in the eyes as she does so. Vex almost feels bad for Percival-- this one will be trouble, she can tell.

When they get closer to the waiting room the door is open and voices carry out of it, and Vex feels that familiar dread start to seep back into her heart. She has made peace with this, she can handle it, she is capable of being an adult about this. Johanna's grip on her hand tightens as the girl rushes ahead, now tugging Vex along faster. The two of them trot through the door, and as soon as Johanna sees Trinket she drops Vex's hand with a squeal and bounds forward fearlessly.

"Ah, I thought I'd heard my magpie's chatter down the hall," a familiar voice says, and Vex turns to see Percival settled comfortably in a chair opposite of Vax, one leg crossed over his knee. It's the first time she's seen him in nearly half a decade, since she left him in his bed in the middle of the night; he looks a bit older, a bit more worn, the years showing heavier on his face than they do on herself and her brother, but when he looks at her his smile is gentle and unassuming, and the tendrils of fear that had started to clutch at her begin to slip away. "Hello, Vex'ahlia," he greets, dipping his head slightly. "It's been a long time."

"Hello, Percival," she responds, pleased by how steady her voice is. Sometimes she surprises herself, she thinks, by how strong she actually is.

Vax looks between the two of them with a slight frown, but Johanna is completely ignoring them, circling a confused Trinket with a look of awe in her blue eyes. When she reaches one hand out to pet him, Percy clears his throat loudly. "Daughter, I've momentarily forgotten that you're supposed to be in bed as punishment for poor manners, so I suggest you practice good ones and _ask_ before I remember."

Johanna twists to look at Vex over her shoulder, expression imploring. "Can I?"

"May I," her father corrects, at the same time that Vex says, "Of course, darling, he won't bite."

The girl's grin is blinding when she turns back to Trinket and sinks her hand into his thick fur, showing a surprising amount of restraint as she gently pets him despite the excitement that nearly vibrates out of her. "I see you've already met my eldest, Vex'ahlia" Percy says with a hum, threading his fingers together and resting his hands on his stomach. "Vax, it's been a while since you've seen her, I believe, but this is my daughter, Johanna. Say hello, Johanna."

"Hello, Johanna," Johanna says cheekily, still enraptured by Trinket and giving a delighted squeak when the bear turns his head to lick up the side of her face.

Vax laughs, bright and loud, and it softens his face from the severe expression he'd been wearing when Vex had entered the room. She wonders what they'd been discussing before she and the little bird had appeared. "She's definitely yours, Percival," he says with a grin, "the sass is disturbingly similar. Why's she so underdressed, though?"

"She's _supposed_ to be in bed," Percy says, putting emphasis on the word, and Johanna's shoulders tighten for a moment in a flinch, "because she punched one of the servant's boys this morning."

"You said that you'd just pushed him," Vex accuses, unable to keep the chuckle out of her voice. In the very limited amount of time that she's spent with Johanna, she can already tell that she likes the child.

"I did," Johanna says, guileless as she glances at them over her shoulder. "With my fist." And then she turns back to Trinket, clearly distracted. From his seat Percy sighs heavily, and the twin's attention turns back to him.

"As I was telling Vax earlier," he says, his voice tired, "I apologize for the inattention with my correspondence. The past few year has been rough for my wife and I. Vesper, our younger one, caught a bad cold over the winter that Adelaide then caught from her." He lifts one hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose and Vex feels her heart ache for him, already anticipating what happened next. "Unfortunately complications arose with the pregnancy because of that, and, ah. Well. She's had a hard time shaking it." He clears his throat again. "Needless to say I've been a bit preoccupied of late."

"I'm sorry, Percival," she murmurs, and at the same time Vax says, "Our condolences. We don't mean to intrude on your mourning, we just worried over your silence."

Percy waves a hand and sighs again. "No, no, you're not intruding. When I got the message that you were waiting for me here I was quite happy, honestly."

He looks up and meets Vex's eyes. The last time she'd seen him, he'd been asleep in bed and she'd been running away, filled with the fear of him and the intensity of what she'd felt. Now she feels only sorrow for his loss; despite it all, he is her friend first and foremost. She comes to him and crouches beside his seat, rests her hand atop one of his, and when he looks at her his blue eyes are thankful and soft.

"I would be glad for you to stay and visit," he says after a long moment. Vex squeezes his hand, just once, very gently, and then pulls away and nods.

\--------

Percival's wife, when Vex finally meets her an hour or two later, is perhaps a few inches shorter than Vex herself, a few years older than her husband, and still slightly carrying the weight of her failed pregnancy.

Despite this, she has an intense air about her that makes her seem as large as Grog and nearly as deadly. Vex would definitely not like to see her rage.

"Husband," she says, sweeping into the study they'd relocated to, the train of her dress trailing across the floor behind her, "Cassandra has nearly lost her head with worry-- Oh." She stops and blinks at the collection of guests. Vax smiles at her while Vex just looks her over, and Trinket lifts his head off his paws from his corner of the room, though he doesn't move any more than that for fear of waking Johanna, who's curled up against his side, the excitement of the day having caught up with her. "We have company." She crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow at Percy, who looks a bit sheepish and clutches his glass of whiskey a bit tighter. "Thank you _kindly_ for letting me know."

"I was going to sen a servant to fetch you, but I was distracted," he offers, and then takes a drink when her other eyebrow rises as well.

Drawing herself up to her full height and smoothing down the creases of her dress, Percy's wife turns to look at the twins with a smile. "Hello again, Vax'ildan," she says warmly, though she doesn't curtsy, which oddly enough Vex kind of appreciates. It's surprisingly refreshing, to know that Percy's found someone to balance out his occasional stuffiness. "I haven't seen you since the wedding. And you must be Vex'ahlia!" The smile turns into a grin and that left eyebrow goes back up. "My husband has told me a lot about you." Percy coughs on his whiskey, and she chides, "Swallow, dearest, there's a lad," before dipping her head down in greeting. "I am Adelaide Morgana von Ables Tekla de Rolo, Lady of Whitestone, at your service."

"What a mouthful," Vex says before she can stop herself, and sees Vax bite his lip to keep from laughing out of the corner of her eye. Adelaide has no such compunction, and laughs brightly. Percy gets to his feet and offers his chair to her, and she takes it with a smile, watching as he pulls another closer to sit in himself.

"I agree, so call me Adelaide. It was a terrible thing to carry around as a child, especially since I had this wretched stutter until my teenage years." She looks pointedly at the whiskey Percy's holding until he hands it over with a sigh and gets up once more to get another glass. "You've met my holy terror, then, I take it?" she asks, nodding over to the snoozing Johanna.

"She was up in the rafters near the kitchens," Vex says with a grin. It's strange, how... relaxed she feels. She'd been fearing this, dreading it immensely, but for some reason she just feels incredibly comfortable. Percy isn't making any of it awkward and Adelaide is surprisingly casual considering the circumstances. It's not bad, definitely not. Just strange.

"Yes, she does that," Adelaide says with a huff. "It drives Cassandra up the wall when it's her turn to watch her." She takes a sip of her drink and then screws her face up in distaste, setting it aside with a frown. "I always forget your wretched taste in alcohol, husband."

Percy, who's just fetched his own new glass, sighs once more, heavily.

"Well," his wife says, lifting herself up out of the chair and crossing over to her sleeping daughter, ignoring Percy who stares at the abandoned seat he'd just vacated for her and then throws his hands up into the air in exasperation. "I suppose I should put this monster to bed then, before she drowns your bear in drool." She bends down and pats Trinket on the head. "Hello, handsome. Alright, Johanna, up you get." She wraps her arms around the girl's middle and hefts her up, settling her neatly against her hip. Percy rises from his own seat, expression worried.

"Adelaide, please let me get her, you shouldn't--"

Adelaide turns and gives him a glare that Vex personally finds rather impressive. "Percival, I carried this child for nine months, I can carry her just as easily for another five minutes." Then her face softens, and she hitches Johanna up against her higher. "I appreciate your concern, but honestly. I'm _fine_ , husband."

Percy, still standing in front of his chair with a frown, nods his head slowly. "As you say, wife."

With another smile at the twins and, strangely, a wink at Vex, Adelaide carries her burden out of the room, humming softly.

Percy stays for another few minutes, the conversation light and inconsequential, until he begs pardon to return to the Council business he'd been attending to before they'd arrived.

After he leaves, Vax looks over at his sister with a slight frown. "We could go," he tells her calmly. "We've had our fears assuaged, and we've no obligation to stay here." Vex bites her lip, and he tilts his head. "I'll follow your lead, sister. You're the one with rough history here."

Vex thinks about it for a long moment. She can handle this, she knows. She's stronger than she realizes, and the warmth and familiarity of the castle of Whitestone has soothed some part of her that she hadn't realized had been hurt, settling a piece of her windblown heart. So long as she and Percy can come to an agreement, she can handle it.

"I think I should like to stay," she says slowly. "At least for a bit."

Her brother nods and reaches out to take her hand, squeezing her fingers tightly. "Then we'll stay."

\--------

Between the Council and her brother, between his children and his wife, it is nearly a fortnight into their stay at Whitestone before Vex actually speaks to Percival alone.

Johanna seems to have imprinted on her like a duckling, dogging Vex's steps when she's not in her lessons and asking question after question, who, what, when, and most frequently _why_. She's inherited all of her father's boundless curiosity, though hers seems to be aimed more at the world at large and less in the sciences, and absolutely none of his temperance. Truthfully, Vex is glad for the distraction, throwing herself into Johanna's attention eagerly to avoid Percy, whose eyes occasionally linger on her, and who she sometimes cannot help but look after as well.

It is a difficult thing to suppress, how she feels for him, even after so many years have passed since she's seen him, more than the entirety of their friendship combined. So she lets Johanna sweep her away in a whirlwind of energy, anything to keep her mind off of the girl's father, who tries more and more frequently to engage her in conversation, and becoming steadily less composed when his attempts at doing so are thwarted.

Her younger sister Vesper, on the other hand, has what Vax privately describes to her as a terminal lack of personality, shying away from them nervously and hiding behind her mother's dresses or her father's legs whenever they're in the same room. She's yet to speak higher than a mumble and has never once looked either of them in the eye, and truthfully Vex has only seen her a handful of times the entire visit up to this point, a complete foil to Johanna who spends more time asking questions than she does listening to the answers.

Adelaide, meanwhile, would be so much easier to stand if Vex could just bring herself to dislike the damn woman and be done with it, but she's always been impressed by ladies who take no shit, and the Lady de Rolo's laissez-faire approach to both parenting and marriage is hilarious to watch. She seems to regard Percy's frustration at being unable to corner Vex alone as the height of hilarity, and Johanna's constant escaping from Cassandra, who is apparently charged with the girl's lessons, as a source of extreme amusement.

At some point, during one of the rare moments that she's not trailing after Vex like a puppy, Johanna punches the boy Emmett again and breaks her own thumb. Percy frets anxiously as she wails, and when Vex offers to use what little magic she possesses to heal it, Adelaide just shakes her head.

"Let her suffer for it for a bit longer," she says cheerfully, ignoring the glare her husband sends her. "If I've told her once I've told her a dozen times not to punch people, and then at least as many times I've told her that if she absolutely _must_ , then to at least not tuck her thumb in. Maybe now she'll listen."

"Unkind, wife," Percy accuses with a heavy frown, and Vex can't stop herself, thinking back on a similar conversation between the two of them.

"Ah," she says sagely, crossing her arms, "but isn't it _good?_ Perhaps it can be used as a _learning experience_ "

But regardless, Vex doesn't have a moment alone with the Lord of Whitestone until a good bit of time has passed since she and her brother arrived. It's early morning and she's in her guest room, holding a cup of warm tea between her hands and listening to the rain falling against the ground outside, hard enough that she can hear it even through the walls of the castle. Percy hadn't been lying before, when he'd spoken about the rains the city sees in the spring. More often than not when she sees Johanna the child is covered in mud, much to her father's displeasure. It's a peaceful sort of morning, and Johanna hasn't yet shown up to demand her attention, not that Vex would mind too terribly if the girl did. She's quickly grown fond of Percy's older child; of his entire family, truthfully, mostly for the positive influences that they've had on him. When he speaks to his girls, he's more gentle than she's ever heard him, fatherhood seeming to have tempered a few of his sharper edges. It's been good for him.

This is why she couldn't stay last time, she thinks. Vex'ahlia is the kind of woman who's good for a fling and a fun time, but she and commitment are typically poor bedfellows.

There's a knock at her door and she calls out permission to enter, expecting her brother since Johanna rarely knocks, having fallen into the habit of simply bursting into her rooms like a tornado. When she glances up to see Percy stepping into the room and closing the door gently behind him, she blinks in surprise, and her heart instinctively thumps a bit harder, the traitorous thing.

"Percival," she greets, standing slightly, "how are you this mo--" He holds up a hand and she stops, slowly sinking back down. Ah. She'd been wondering how long she could put this off before it finally happened.

"Please," he says quietly, stopping and taking a seat at the edge of her bed, looking tired. "I'd rather not bother with small talk at the moment. If we keep doing that then we'll never say what needs to be said."

Vex swallows and pushes her tea to the side, staring down at her hands. After nearly minute of silence she finally looks up and meets his eyes, and he sighs.

"I was very angry at you," Percy tells her, though his voice is calm and even despite his words, "for a very long time. And that anger became hurt. And at some point, Vex'ahlia, I realized that I am tired of being angry and I am so very incredibly _tired_ of being hurt."

"I'm sorry," she whispers, gaze dropping back down to her hands. "I thought that I was doing what was best for the both of us."

Percy shakes his head with a frown. "No, you were scared, and you ran. That's _okay_ , Vex. I forgave you for that a long time ago."

He looks tired, worn, and she wonders if her presence here is causing more harm than good, but when her eyes meet his again they're fierce, the way they used to get during a fight, when he's aiming to kill.

"Did you know that my wife was affianced to one of Whitestone's soldiers before we'd met?" he says suddenly, leaning towards her. Vex didn't know that, and confusion takes her for a second; she'd never have believed that Percy would be the kind of man to break up a marriage, and neither has what she's seen of Adelaide lead her to think that the woman would allow it. "It was terribly improper, her being part of the nobility and he being a simple militia man. But he died, in the first rebellion against the Briarwoods. The one that failed before we arrived."

Vex thinks on that for a moment, and then asks slowly, "Does she know about Cassandra?" Percy shakes his head.

"I don't believe so, but I don't claim to know exactly how her mind works. The _point_ , Vex'ahlia, is that she does not love me and I do not love her, but this is an arraignment that allows both of us to do our duty to Whitestone."

"Marriage should not be a duty," she argues quietly, and Percy laughs a humorless, bitter little thing.

"Marriage is little more than currency when one is titled, darling. But it _works_. She doesn't have to expect anything from me, and I do not have to fear anything from her. Neither of us ask for love, because neither of us can give it. We are friends, very good ones, and I am very lucky to have found her, could ask for no finer woman to mother my children, but I was not her first choice, and she is not mine." He rises up and steps towards her, but she just swallows and stares down at her hands against the table. "We are very similar in that regard."

He leans down in front of her, hovering over the table with a sigh. This close she can see the lines that have developed at the corners of his eyes, at the base of his brow, where time has touched him in a way that it has passed over her.

"I will not ask anything of you," he says quietly, near enough that his breath is a soft puff of air against her hair. "I have learned that lesson well. But perhaps keep in mind how terribly disappointed Johanna would be, if you were to suddenly leave."

"Wretched man," she whispers. "Using your daughter's affection against me." He barks out another laugh.

"My own has served me poorly with this endeavor in the past." He ducks towards her suddenly, faster than she thinks to move away, and presses a kiss to the top of her head. "Think on it," he says, and then leaves the room, shutting the door behind him, and Vex is left in his thunderously silent wake, wondering what it is, exactly, that she's supposed to be thinking on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man nothing says perc'ahlia quite like 8k of no fucking percy AM I RITE


End file.
